


Smart, Amazing, Broken

by loveandallthat



Category: Leverage
Genre: Case Fic, Getting Together, Multi, OT3, Sort Of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 07:47:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26848402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveandallthat/pseuds/loveandallthat
Summary: “When I got that… request to do my old job,” he starts. Hardison and Parker immediately make different, violent “offing someone” gestures. “Yes, that one, thanks.”He shouldn’t be so relieved that they’re able to be so… Parker and Hardison about it; he should be mad that it seems like they’re taking him lightly, but he knows that’s not what this is.“There are a few other people who I may have worked for back in the day who I think we should also… take out of play. No, not like that,” he says, rolling his eyes at the recurrence of the violent gestures. “Like we do.”
Relationships: Alec Hardison/Parker/Eliot Spencer
Comments: 20
Kudos: 178





	Smart, Amazing, Broken

**Author's Note:**

> Beta read by the beautiful and kind [izayas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/izayas) who hasn't even seen Leverage. Yet.
> 
> Sorry if any of their voices aren't quite right! I'm just trying things.

If you ask Eliot, it happens slowly and out of order, if there even is an order to these types of things; he did a little research and then got embarrassed, then re-embarrassed when he remembered the only thing standing between him and Hardison knowing about him being typing fingers deep in bisexual polyamory forums is any respect he has for Eliot’s privacy. To be fair, despite how it may seem, that could still save him, unless Hardison thought he was hiding something dangerous, or something he’d be ashamed of but in a funny way.

This search history could be passed off as, say, a desire to experiment with guys while also having a woman present, except that he was definitely in the long term relationship corners of the internet. Hardison already knew too much about his sexual history, primarily due to Eliot’s newfound inability to keep his mouth shut around him and Parker. Considering that, he should probably be more worried about giving himself away by acting weird than by Hardison being nosy and hacking. 

On the plus side, he was probably now more socially aware than he had planned, and he no longer thought that they were going out of order if they just changed the dating rules from two to three.

Parker and Hardison had gotten together the usual way, at least in terms of getting to know each other: finding an attraction and then dating. Eliot’s feelings for them started with an absolute sense of trust. He didn’t mean to test it with a biological terrorist attempt but after they had his back, he had confirmation and a huge sense of guilt for the relief it gave him. 

The guilt was more because it was then that he started wanting something different from them, even if he was still working through it. That didn’t stop him from promising Sophie to take care of them for the rest of his life right on the heels of her engagement and telling Nate that they were all he needed. So yeah, they were a little out of order, with him promising to be with them forever before he told them how he felt, even before he knew if he ever would.

Sure, you could pass the whole exchange off as platonic, and that kind of plausible deniability might be important one day. But the truth is Eliot meant it as more, even if he didn’t know what he wanted to do about it yet. The point is that Eliot wasn’t lying to himself, or to anyone else; he was just figuring things out. Not his feelings--at this point, he knew he was in love with them.

Just with  _ both _ of them. 

He just didn’t know what he wanted to do about that. Being around them, even if they  _ were  _ being outwardly romantic, which they usually weren’t, wasn’t painful at all. People talk about being near someone you love without acting on it like it’s the worst thing in the world, but Eliot can’t get enough of them, even just hanging out. Sometimes they’ll give him a look or a comment that makes him think that maybe they know what he’s thinking, or if they don’t, maybe they feel the same way and are feeling him out. He never knows how to respond right, how to send the right signals back. The  _ yes but _ , or the  _ maybe one day _ , the  _ not no _ , the  _ please wait for me _ . The “I don’t want to test you guys but I do want to be sure.”

If they notice something is going on with him, they never say anything, just sit next to him sometimes or hang out with him, ask him what’s up and leave it open ended, switch to talking about themselves when it’s obvious that he’s not going to offer anything at the moment. Or they let him talk about other things, and get into it with him, too. It just feels like they’re giving him more space--not physically, and not even in terms of leaving him alone, just leaving more room in conversations for him to speak if he wants to. He doesn’t want to, not yet.

Eventually, Parker and Hardison notice that something’s on his mind. (In this case, “eventually” takes less than 24 hours. Eliot used to be able to hide things from them; he knows he once could.)

Hardison is the one who asks him, but he’s looking back at Parker intermittently, so Eliot knows that they must have talked about him behind his back. Instead of that making him feel paranoid or betrayed or scrutinized, he just feels sort of jealous and left out.

He sighs, which makes Parker and Hardison immediately perk up and give him their full attention, and he feels himself relax at that. He wants to roll his eyes at himself, but he’s already acting weird enough.

“When I got that… request to do my old job,” he starts. Hardison and Parker immediately make different, violent “offing someone” gestures. “Yes, that one, thanks.” 

He shouldn’t be so relieved that they’re able to be so… Parker and Hardison about it; he should be mad that it seems like they’re taking him lightly, but he knows that’s not what this is.

“There are a few other people who I may have worked for back in the day who I think we should also… take out of play. No, not like that,” he says, rolling his eyes at the recurrence of the violent gestures. “Like we do.”

“Yeah, we were joking,” Hardison says, over the start of Parker’s sentence. “Do you have a plan, or do you want to give me some names and I’ll get some intel for our new mastermind-slash-grifter to work with?”

“Just like that?” Eliot asks. “I say jump?”

Hardison and Parker both jump.

Eliot shakes his head, fighting a smile.

* * *

It’s different without Nate and Sophie, of course. 

In some ways, it’s better, and Hardison feels guilty whenever he realizes that. But as much as Nate may have implied otherwise, Parker will never be at Nate’s level of callousness regarding safety, at least anymore. It was probably easy to imagine that she would be the same or worse, when she used to have so much trouble understanding other people’s feelings, and even her own. But when she started to learn from Sophie, she took it and ran with it. It happened out of order, too--first she learned how to trick people and lie, and then she learned how to understand people she cared about and be honest with them.

Hardison has followed this progression, selfishly glad, but also glad for Parker. He would have been happy for her if she had figured out her feelings weren’t interested in him after all, if it meant that she had learned to understand herself and others more deeply; he truly would. Luckily, all signs point to her having decided that she really cared about him, and has learned to express it.

That’s why at first it seems obvious that they should infiltrate the couple’s retreat together. But there’s something about real chemistry and romance that doesn't work as well for Parker and Hardison--maybe the fact that they have a very unique relationship.

Besides, they want Eliot to be there in case things get tough. They’re not going after any of the hitmen, but this man in particular is someone who never hired someone to do something he couldn’t do himself, if he needed to. Someone who’d been in the business long enough to hire other people and reap the benefits.

Someone who had been taken in by a gold digging younger woman who convinced him to go on a couple’s retreat. Likely with her body, Hardison helpfully points out, as he shows her picture on the screen.

Parker studies the picture. “Yeah, I can see that,” she agrees. Hardison smirks, raising his eyebrows at Eliot, because he’s looking between the two of them like they’re doing something weird.

“The couple that appreciates a nice body together stays together,” Hardison said, sagely. He didn’t necessarily believe that as a blanket statement for all couples; he just wanted to rile Eliot up as usual.

“I don’t need to know about what you guys get up to,” Eliot insists, but Hardison thinks his heart isn’t in it. He didn’t even pull any unnecessarily dramatic faces or gestures. He studies Eliot for a while after that, suspicious, and Eliot doesn’t say anything, just narrows his eyes.

“Anyway,” Parker says, and Eliot actually starts slightly. “We’re going to have to get into that retreat. It’s a small company, so it’ll be easier and more effective to try to go as customers instead of new employees of any variety--less suspicious, too. But all three of us need to be there, so we need… a fourth!”

As she says this, Amy pops up from behind the desk. Hardison hadn’t even noticed Parker had herded them to stay on the opposite side, and he glances sideways at Eliot to try to see if he seems surprised, but his expression betrays nothing. 

And Hardison had really thought he’d gotten better at reading the guy.

“Hi,” Amy says cheerfully.

“Have you been here the whole time?” Hardison asks, forgetting that he wanted to pretend he wasn’t still calming down his racing heartbeat and act casual to see if Eliot would freak out instead. One of the unstated rules of a con, or really any situation, is that it’s often easier to remain calm when someone else freaks out for you.

“Yeah,” Amy answers. “Parker went through everything quickly for me so I didn’t have to wait down there for long. She was right; it was worth it.”

Eliot opens his mouth and then apparently decides not to say anything. Hardison is a little offended to be left alone here on “something is wrong with this situation” but he graciously doesn’t say anything. Eliot truly needs to learn how much Hardison holds back for him.

“The things I put up with,” he can’t help but mutter under his breath. He can tell from Eliot’s face that he hears him.

“As you know, the original plan was for me and Hardison to be one of the couples, since we actually are a couple, but apparently some people think we’re  _ so  _ weird nobody would believe this is how we relate. I was still going to say it should be us,” Parker says, and Hardison won’t deny it makes him feel warm inside, “but since I was bringing Amy in, I thought she might be more comfortable with Hardison than Eliot. No offense, Eliot.”

Eliot’s face says, “some taken,” to Hardison’s discerning eye, but his mouth says, “no problem.”

Parker doesn’t make any indication of noticing that, but she probably does. “Obviously then it would make sense for it to be me and Amy as a couple and Hardison with Eliot, but I think even in this day and age we’d draw a lot of attention as two sets of same gender couples.”

“Is that the next obvious option?” Eliot asks rhetorically. 

“Of course it is. In fact, you guys will have to try extra hard  _ not  _ to make people think you’re together,” Parker tells Hardison and Eliot, looking back and forth between the two of them.

“Are they really that bad?” Amy asks, lowering her voice.

“We’re right here,” Hardison says, mostly by rote. He knows that he and Eliot have long since stopped being participants in this conversation.

“Haven’t you noticed?” Parker asks Amy.

“No, I can’t really even imagine Eliot giving off that vibe with anyone. I didn’t think he touched people except to punch them.” Amy’s voice grew softerr on Eliot’s name, but the two guys could still hear the whole conversation. Hardison made eye contact with Eliot, who just sat back and put his hands behind his head, so Hardison resolved to wait it out, too.

“What do you mean? Eliot hugs Hardison all the time. That’s another reason I thought they’d work better as a fake couple for this.” Parker is clearly holding back when she says this. Hardison knows her well enough to tell. He also knows that there is no way that he can turn to see what Eliot’s face is doing now, no matter how desperately he wants to.

As usual, his curiosity gets the better of him. He tries to be stealthy, look out of the corner of his eye, to see that Eliot’s expression hasn’t shifted much--his jaw is tense, but that might just be the norm, but he looks a little red. Hardison’s eyes dart right back to Parker; if Eliot’s legitimately embarrassed, he doesn’t want to be caught looking.

“What do you mean, all the time?”

“Oh, I see the confusion, not  _ literally  _ all the time. Just often.”

Amy half-laughs. “That’s… not at all where I got confused. He just doesn’t seem like a… touchy person.”

“Ha, if we’re talking just touching, even more. He puts his hands on people. It’s his thing. Even when he’s not doing it to beat them up.”

It’s not like Hardison hasn’t noticed, hasn’t thought about it, hasn’t realized. When Eliot was drugged, his first instinct was to hug Hardison as soon as he saw him, until his defenses kicked back in. Hardison tries not to hold that against him, since he was drugged against his will, but he can’t help but think about it and wonder what it means. Based on all available evidence, he came to kind of the same conclusions Parker did.

However, this is one of the situations he’d known to keep quiet, but Parker seems to feel differently. She doesn’t appear to realize that this might make him stop, or clam up.

But maybe, Hardison thinks, as Eliot’s posture returns more to real relaxed than fake relaxed, Parker knows exactly what she’s doing, that things can’t just live beneath the surface forever and not be talked about.

“Interesting,” Amy says, and they un-sidebar.

“Yeah, thanks for that,” Eliot says, and clears his throat. “So we’ve established why we’re paired off like this, that’s great. Except you two are one of the most jealous couples I know.”

Parker looks at Eliot funny. “We don’t have to worry about you,” she says to Eliot, who frowns.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asks, looking at Hardison for support.

“She means we don’t have to worry about you,” Hardison repeats helpfully.

Eliot, of course, manages to act like he doesn’t find that helpful at all. “I could be a homewrecker if I wanted to,” he argues, sounding petulant.

Hardison laughs. “It doesn’t help to admit you don’t want to,” he points out. “Besides, we know you could if you wanted to. That’s not what we mean.”

“Damn it, Hardison. Don’t say what you  _ don’t  _ mean,” Eliot sighs, his voice getting tired at the end of the sentence, defeated.

“We mean you’d never hurt us,” Hardison says. “Obviously. Sheesh. It’s not as fun when I have to spell it out.”

“Oh,” Eliot says, and looks away.

“Yeah, oh.”

Hardison looks at Parker and tries to convey his desire to move on from this topic.

“Moving on,” Parker says. Nailed it, Hardison thinks smugly. Their nonverbal communication has been really good lately. “We’re going to infiltrate as two couples. Team Safety and Team Danger. This is because Amy is a civilian and Hardison is a cute tech geek, so you guys are going to do the safe parts, and I am an acrobatic thief and Eliot is a cute hitter, so we’re going to do the dangerous parts.”

“Why can’t everyone be Team Safety?” Hardison suggests.

At the same time, Eliot asks, “Why are we both cute?”

“Priorities, man,” Hardison says.

“I don’t know  _ why _ ,” Parker answers, though Hardison isn’t one hundred percent sure she’s answering Eliot’s question.

Parker explains the rest of the plan, a scarily clever ruse that involves gaining the trust of the young girlfriend and turning her against the old crime lord. Hardison likes that the men they’re taking down on behalf of Eliot are referred to as “crime lords.” Eliot demonstrably flinches when she says it, and Amy fidgets nervously, but Parker seems pretty sure of the safety of this job. The man probably knows how to bring weapons to places where they’re supposed to be forbidden, but it’s still likely to be easier to catch him unarmed and off-guard--if they need to, though the primary goal is intel.

\---

“You’re really not worried?” Amy asks Hardison, when they’re doing trust falls at a couple’s retreat.

“Worried you’re too small to catch me?” Hardison suggests. “Because if it’s that, then absolutely.”

“Hey, I work out!” Amy complains. “And I mean about Eliot and Parker. They look really comfortable with each other.” She indicates them with a nod, and Hardison gets to watch them both pretend not to notice that he and Amy are clearly talking about them. They’ve both been doing extreme trust falls, to the dismay of the group therapist, who said at the beginning that actual danger wasn’t the point of the exercise. That was probably innocent enough--romantically, anyway--until Parker added in a surprise trust jump that landed her in Eliot’s arms, clasping her hands neatly behind his head.

“Yeah, they’re going to make the therapists wonder what they’re even doing here. OK, I’m going to fall, you’re behind me, right? Please be behind me.”

Amy catches him perfectly, even gently slowing his fall instead of just stopping him suddenly. “I think we both know that’s not what I mean,” she says, pushing him back up to standing.

“Do you think this is less of a trust exercise and more of them trying to bring people to their breaking points?” Hardison asks. Most of the couples around them are arguing, and some have even dropped people onto the grass. “It explains that intense waiver.”

“Fair point,” Amy admits. “But I don’t really appreciate being ignored.”

“Oh, now it’s got us fighting. OK, OK. Just trust me. Eliot would never do anything to hurt us, or anything we don’t want him to do, at least regarding us. You feel me?”

“Are you saying the three of you--”

“No, no, I’m not saying that at all,” Hardison interrupts, then pauses. “...For now.”

“Perfect!” The therapist announces, breaking through the shocked look on Amy’s face and averting her attention. “I think that really kicked our emotions up! Let’s see what we can do with them at our next activity.”

“Oh, thank the lord,” Hardison mumbled. 

\---

Hardison has faith in his girl, OK, but he didn’t really expect Parker to put together a plan that involved a huge criminal with a penchant for hiring hitmen and other fixers to promise to give it all up and spend his money to live with his girlfriend for the rest of his life. It turned out that was all he wanted, too, and they just had to solve his problems to get different bad people off of his back.

It turned out  _ that  _ was as easy as convincing them that he was already in prison. Not many people with connections seemed like they wanted to kill him, anyway, mostly to continue working for him, and with that ability taken away, they’d find someone else. Besides, he was the one with secrets; nobody would be worried he was going to snitch.

“You really trust that’s going to work?’ Parker asks Eliot, and Hardison feels a surge of warmth for her even beyond his normal feelings. It’s her plan and it worked, but it’s Eliot’s issue and his feelings are still important.

“I like it better than any other option,” Eliot says, and Hardison somehow feels certain that Eliot means it.

Parker smiles, like she’s thinking the same thing. And like she’s proud of herself, or maybe Hardison is projecting his own feelings. The fact that these results are kinder than anything Nate could have done is a hard-won victory; they have to be strong to be this gentle.

“Great,” she says. “Who’s next?”

It’s just for dramatic effect; Parker remembers every step of every plan, but Hardison appreciates a good moment.

* * *

Parker has never been this nervous during a con, including the first time she planned one on her own, including when she had to grift before she was good at it and jumped off of a balcony, including the terrorism, excluding the time when Hardison was buried alive, to be fair.

The stakes have been high a lot of times, but this is the first time the stakes are so personal and she’s in charge. She wants to do right by Eliot, and she’s worried he won’t tell her if she’s not because he doesn’t want to hurt her feelings. The two of them have a lot of trust built up between them, and Eliot doesn’t tend to hold back when he really thinks she needs to hear something. But this is something so different, delicate, dangerous. It’s not something that Eliot  _ needs  _ to do, the way that taking down Moreau was when it all came to a head. It’s something that he wants, that would make it happy; it feels like she has the opportunity to give him a gift.

Hardison is fully on board. He understood what she thought about this situation without her having to explain it, but she did anyway and he listened. He is taking this as seriously as she is, in his Hardison way of taking things seriously, which involves a lot of jokes. At least now she gets almost half of his references. 

In this next job, Hardison’s pre-existing knowledge is really important. Their next target is a man whose primary goal is to get richer and live like it. He goes to as many exclusive events and clubs as possible. But he also keeps as far away from the violence as possible--he’s never seen Eliot’s face. Hardison will do more good in the van for a lot of their endeavors, so Eliot is going to have to be their point person, and maybe even interact with the target. It’s more of a boys’ club situation, but Parker is ready to wear a skimpy outfit and flirt with Eliot if she has to, which reminds her a lot of Amy’s comments on their last con. Hardison had told her some of them, even if it seemed to her like he was holding back, but she believed that he got the point across the way it needed to be. 

The point is, Eliot has to look really rich and trendy, like new money. Parker has paid enough attention to know that Hardison tends towards the ostentatious, so they end up all having to go shopping together.

Hardison is thrilled. Eliot is not.

“I haven’t been shopping in at least a year,” Eliot complains. “I don’t need to. I have everything I need. I barely even have to buy food anymore, with the restaurant supply chain…” he trails off.

“How can you never buy anything?” Parker asks. “I mean, I never buy anything, but that’s because Hardison buys everything I want.”

Eliot looks down at his shirt, and Hardison bites his lip. “I didn’t buy this,” he says.

“Did you steal it?” Parker asks. She thinks it’s a fair question, all things considered.

“I mean, I didn’t pick it out,” Eliot says. “I just saw it in my closet.”

“Oh, that’s how I get all my clothes. I mean, I know logically that it’s Hardison, but he’s so sneaky about it, it’s like they just appear,” Parker says.

“Damn it, Hardison, you’ve been buying me clothes?” Eliot demands, getting into his space.

Hardison lifts one foot to take a step back then reconsiders, planting it in its original location and standing tall. Height as intimidation doesn’t work on Eliot, but it demonstrates that he’s not moving. “Yeah, and whatever else it seems like you need. I got you covered… literally.”

Parker laughs; Hardison’s jokes have really been growing on her. “Oh no, should I be jealous?” she asks, locking eyes with Hardison so he knows she’s kidding. They’re usually not this teasingly flirty with Eliot, but he’s already off-balance and Parker can’t resist.

Eliot frowns, and blinks a few times, then shakes his head and goes back to paying attention to Hardison. Parker sits back and gets comfortable in the chair outside the fitting room. Sophie always called it the boyfriend chair, but this is a men’s shop, and assuming heteronormativity still applies, that would make it a girlfriend chair, right?

Hardison intercepts a sales associate bringing over a handful of clothes and he’s the one who hands them over to Eliot. Parker doesn’t know how he did it, but he really does manage to be at home in these stores. Well, they were probably used to Hardison’s type of eccentricity. 

“Anything that fits my arms and shoulders won’t fit the rest of me,” Eliot says, frowning, as he accepts the clothes. To Parker, it sounds rehearsed, like something he used to say often but hadn’t had to remember recently.

“Man, you think I don’t know that? Look at my legs, you think I ever wear anything right off the rack? You think you do?” Hardison asks. It’s an admission of a lot more effort on his part than they’d already known about, and they’ve known about a lot.

“My clothes always fit lately,” Eliot accuses.

“I have a really good tailor,” Hardison says, closing the door to the fitting room.

Eliot opens it again and his hand shoots out to grab Hardison’s wrist and bring him inside with him, then shut the door again. Parker smiles. 

\---

Parker is essentially on call, ready to make Eliot look like he can land the hot girl if someone needs him to prove that, though she’s mainly scouting. Eliot looks really good. Hardison did an excellent job, and Eliot is properly grifting. It’s interesting that so many people who hired Eliot never saw his face; it explains why people who did felt they had a sense of power over him--and they probably did.

His stance, though, no longer says “ready to punch” as much as it says “do you have an older scotch than this?”

Parker is so proud.

When they started looking into this man, they thought that he was the most retired of all of them, but it turned out he was getting back into the business. This was actually the third such party that they were attending, and Eliot has made some good progress getting the mark to trust him just enough. They don’t need much. This guy’s history will all be revealed when one crime is revealed, so all they have to do is make sure he’s caught in this one and hope the cops can do their job.

This party is kind of a way to meet up with people who might be in the same shady business, and then move to their next locations for the actual transactions. This arm of the business was similar to something they’d pretended to offer to a mark in the past. Insurance fraud, Nate’s specialty, but Parker didn’t need him. Turns out you don’t need to know what actuarial tables are to stop someone from pretending to have the right ones for a con.

Eliot’s true aim is to get the directions to the second location--so the mark will have to trust him at least a little bit, but it’s not a done deal just because he gets invited. That means it’ll be easier to find the place, but also they’ll have another step before they can seal the deal.

It works, but Parker has to intervene and flirt with him to impress the mark. He does a good job of hiding it, but she can tell how uncomfortable he is.

Hardison drives them to the car Eliot will be using to get to the warehouse. Parker offered, because she thought that maybe Eliot would want to talk to Hardison if there was something on his mind, as he’s often done in the past, but Hardison insisted. She’s at least 80% sure that it’s not because of her driving this time, so she trusts his instincts, and gets in the back of the van with Eliot.

“So, you felt weird about that,” Parker says to him. It’s actually Hardison’s insistence that he drive that emboldens her to confront Eliot, in a weird way. She trusts that’s what he was going for.

Eliot shrugs. “Yeah, a little.”

“Do you want to talk about it? So I don’t put you in that position again, or just in general.”

He looks Parker in the eye. “It wasn’t  _ that  _ weird,” he says, like he means it. 

“We can still talk about it even if it’s not a big deal.” Parker means that. She and Hardison have stupid conversations all the time, but sometimes it feels like Eliot is lingering on the outside, wanting to join in but never doing so.

There’s a slight but perceptible decrease in the tension in his shoulders. “It just feels weird, you know? To be playing the role of a rich creepy guy hitting on a younger woman.”

Parker tries not to smile. “I’m not  _ that  _ much younger than you.”

“No,” he agrees, opens his mouth and then closes it again.

“Hardison is,” she tries to fill in what he’s not saying. They haven’t closed the pass-through in the van, so it’s entirely possible that Hardison is listening and if he wasn’t, he just tuned in at the sound of his name.

“Yeah.” He sighs. “I know I’m not actually richer than either of you, and you know I’d never try to use whatever power I  _ could  _ have over you guys, but it feels wrong.”

“That’s not why we’re doing this. It’s not why Hardison buys you things without you asking.”

“I know that. I do.” 

Parker bites her lip, but doesn’t say anything. Eliot shakes his head. “No, I mean it. Yeah, sometimes I doubt myself, but then I just remind myself I’d do all that and way more for you two and I can… try to believe that’s why you’re doing this for me. It just feels like it’s my job to take care of you guys.”

“It’s our job to take care of each other, above everything else we do,” Parker says firmly. “Maybe that’s not how Nate ran things and maybe that’s not how he wanted me to do it, or how he thought I would, but it’s not my fault he doesn’t understand me as well as he thinks. Us,” she corrects. “Understand  _ us _ as well as he thinks. Thought.”

“You’re right,” Eliot says; it looks like he’s fighting a smile and losing. “Thanks.”

“You were right, too, Hardison,” Parker says, raising her voice.

“I know, baby, I know.”

\---

Eliot smashes it out of the park, playing up the rich asshole part perfectly and getting enough of a taste of the incriminating information that Hardison can find his way to all the rest of it, badly hidden once you know what to look for.

Eliot takes Parker and Hardison out for dinner to celebrate, and he makes sure Hardison doesn’t beat him to the check.

* * *

Of course there’s someone technologically savvy in Eliot’s past who he wants to take down,  _ of course _ , as if Hardison needed any more boosts to his ego. He gets so excited as Eliot explains their next target, as Parker plans what they need to do and gives Hardison tasks that sound impossible to Eliot (when he even understands them) and Hardison just nudges him and says “I got this,” and Eliot believes him one hundred percent.

Obviously he doesn’t show that, though, since Hardison knows anyway.

In fact, this job requires mostly Hardison’s expertise, as they have to get inside a home that has the appearance of a Smart Home but is actually smart, and doesn’t connect everything together to an easily hackable wireless connection. There are technological protections that are hardwired and separate, the combination of technical knowledge and appropriate paranoia reflected by the owner. But there’s not an insignificant amount for Parker’s skills, either; someone with that level of fear and knowledge has a lot of physical locking and trapping mechanisms in place, also. He even has lasers, which makes Hardison knock his shoulder into Eliot’s to get his attention and raise his eyebrows.

Eliot allows himself to smirk back for a second; he’s excited to see Parker in action like this again, too.

Maybe people can tell, maybe they can’t, but Eliot has always been a tactile person and really had to fight against it until that fighting became the new habit instead. He remembers Parker and Amy talking about him and Hardison and the thing is, he knows. It’s true of him with Parker, too, and he’s sure that Amy and Hardison had that conversation at some point at the retreat. He  _ knows _ . Eliot already thinks too much about the way they’re not afraid to touch him, or be touched by him. 

It should be weird now, it should have been weird then, to be with Hardison watching his girlfriend do something that was technically functional, but undeniably sexy to both of them. But Hardison, despite jealous tendencies, seemed to realize that it was just normal for them to appreciate Parker’s acrobatic skills, or maybe he gave Eliot a pass for some reason.

Being attracted to Parker at his age was normal, but wasn’t it creepy to be attracted to Hardison? Not for her, but for him, without her as the age range filler between them. He could be attracted to Parker, who could be attracted to Hardison, but he couldn’t be attracted to Hardison. It didn’t work the other way, though; Hardison could be attracted to older people. 

If he wanted to. 

In theory.

His attraction to them came on weirdly, too. He’s not sure when the casual physical intimacy came about, but in retrospect it was probably pretty close to the infallible trust. He was used to being attracted to someone before he had feelings for them, maybe taking them out to get to know them a little and then, deciding their personality was also pretty good, taking things to the next level. 

With Parker and Hardison, the camaraderie and cooperation came on pretty quickly, and then the deep sense of trust came on slowly but surely. It was frequently tested and always passed with flying colors. Eliot almost wished it never had to be tested in such extreme ways, but it meant he had to admit that his faith in them was well-placed.

He didn’t really expect for that to turn into an attraction, but here he is. Maybe it would be fine if it was just sexual; at least it’d be easier to ignore and it would make more sense. Attraction is normal! Attraction to friends is fine, even. You can ignore it, or you can acknowledge it and move on, probably. Parker and Hardison would probably tease him about it, but not in a mean way. But being interested in more is almost too serious. 

Luckily, he’s used to it. He’s glad there’s no real awkwardness between them right now, that if he sees them being romantic, flirty, touching, he doesn’t mind at all; his heart skips a beat sometimes, especially when they’re just so comfortable with him, but it’s fine. He hasn’t done anything embarrassing since he was drugged and felt the immediate (and not unusual) need to hug Hardison upon seeing him and couldn’t suppress it. 

He rests his hand on Hardison’s shoulder as he watches the screen while they wait for Parker to do her thing; she’s basically attaching devices for Hardison to hack to all of the existing smart devices in the house, allowing them to connect them. Some people might even consider what they were doing making the whole house more convenient, connected and automated.

Of course, as the mark knows, that’s the same as more dangerous.

He can’t help but throw his arms around Hardison after a hack so successful that Parker won’t have to go back in the house.

Eliot knows he can always lean on them. Literally, sometimes. Hell, he’d rather have Hardison and Parker than crutches, and their heights are really inconvenient. 

So yes, it’s true, any instinct he has to stay away from people, physically and emotionally, has been pretty thoroughly transformed when it comes to Parker and Hardison.

Hardison doesn’t help, since he just goes along with it, slaps Eliot on the back like they’re doing a normal bro-hug, but Eliot holds on a second longer, just enough to take it into the realm of genuine affection over celebration.

Then, though he isn’t superstitious by nature, he worries he’s just jinxed Parker’s escape route by celebrating too early, but his brain distracts him by going back to his previous musings, stirred on by the feeling of Hardison’s arms having just been around him.

He’s not going to keep it a secret; he’s going to save it for the right moment, but Eliot thinks he fell for Hardison first. It’s embarrassing and would be offensive if Parker cared about things like who knows first, but it’s the truth and with them, the truth comes out in the end. Neither of them are his type, strictly speaking, in that he doesn’t usually like men and he tends to like girlier women, who spend time on how they look and wear skirts when they’re not grifting people. But those are just types, not rules.

So he opens his mouth to say something, and Hardison apparently beats him to it with an out-of-left-field seeming question, at least to Eliot.

“If you don’t want to talk about this, just ignore me,” he starts, which is promising already, “but why’d you bring me and only me with you when we went to meet with Moreau?”

And, OK, this quest with personal significance to Eliot isn’t completely unrelated to that question; he can see why Hardison is asking it.

Eliot doesn’t want to answer, but he’s going to, because Hardison asked, and because Hardison  _ knows  _ what it means to ask him that. And it’s not that Eliot doesn’t want Hardison to know, in this case. It’s just that the thought of telling him rips him apart inside.

“I couldn’t do it alone,” he starts, and of course Hardison interrupts already.

“Like, procedurally? Or emotionally?” he asks, and Eliot closes his eyes.

“Both,” he admits, to himself too. “If I’d gotten you killed because I wasn’t strong enough…”

He trails off and before he can continue, Hardison interrupts.

“You were right, ultimately,” Hardison says, when the pause gets too long for him.

“I could have just as easily been wrong. I wasn’t wrong to trust you, even when you were tattling on me to Nate.”

“You said then that you’d tell us if you asked, but I’m not asking  _ that _ . I’m not asking, but tell me when you want, if ever. I just always thought it was weird that you brought me when you could have gone alone and kept your secret.”

“I didn’t want that. First of all, if you didn’t know the information, we’d probably all be dead.”

Hardison takes a moment. “And second of all?”

“And second of all, I don’t actually like lying to you,” Eliot snaps, then feels guilty. Hardison doesn’t flinch or anything melodramatic, though, which is what Eliot was actually afraid of

“Whoa,” Hardison says, putting his hands up like he needs just a little more drama, “I didn’t think that you did. I mean maybe then I sort of did, but I don’t now.”

“So then you should understand,” Eliot says, frustrated.

Hardison looks over Eliot’s face, searchingly, and from his shoulders down to where he has his arms folded tight, then back to his eyes. “I think so.”

Eliot feels a little like he’s been x-rayed.

Before he has time to worry about her too much, Parker comes back after she gets to shimmy down the side of the house through some kind of Parker magic, and she’s elated.

“Did I make it look as easy as that game you were playing last night?” she asks Hardison.

“Easier,” he says. “And sexier.”

Parker rolls her eyes, but she looks amused to Eliot. “It’s not about being  _ sexy _ ,” she says, like she’s exasperated, like they have this argument all the time.

Video game sexy talk, of course.

Hardison made Parker a geek, but Eliot was already kind of a sucker for some of Hardison’s antics, even if he didn’t understand specific references as much as she did now. He just liked some of the same basics, the stupid jokes and the cool weaponry, old movies and the look on Hardison’s face.

Well, maybe that’s part of what Parker likes now, too.

Of course, everything pops off and a lot of proof is emailed to a lot of people, and their mark goes to a white collar prison for life. Hardison swears he’ll track the man, because the three of them understand better than most what someone could do from prison, especially minimum security.

For some reason, maybe because his face is showing more of his emotions than he’s trying, they follow him home, and he lets them. Eventually they’re going to drag him to their place, he knows, but he wants to change. A few minutes later Eliot is so glad to finally be back in his own clothes. Including a jacket from long enough ago that Hardison isn’t the one who picked it out.

“I need that jacket,” Hardison says when Eliot steps out of his room. Eliot takes it off without thinking about it and hands it over, and Hardison shrugs it on.

“Why do you need it?”

But Hardison is looking at himself in the reflection of the switched off TV screen. “I just thought it would look good on me. I was right.”

It  _ does  _ look good on him. The sleeves had covered Eliot’s hands a little bit--not enough to get in the way. On Hardison, of course, they are edging on too short if he stretches too much, but it works for him. Eliot is halfway through a very thorough once-over when Hardison locks eyes with him and Eliot has to speak up before it gets too weird. “Keep it,” he says, completely failing at any last ditch attempts to be cool and casual.

“Not fair,” Parker says, showing up from nowhere. “I want one of Eliot’s jackets.”

“I think Hardison picked the rest of them,” Eliot says. It’s not even a joke, just a slow realization. He wonders if Hardison will feel any guilt taking that from him. Hardison doesn’t say anything to indicate that, just leaves with Parker and waits for Eliot to follow them, and he does, always will if they want.

* * *

Hardison thinks that Nate’s right when he says that Parker thinks of everything as a puzzle, but he’s wrong when he says they don’t think the same. Or at least he’s never been more wrong than he is while he’s saying it, because Parker tells him once, in the quiet darkness of their bedroom, that they were both avoiding saying that Nate thinks of everything as a chessboard and most people as his pawns. Parker and Hardison may be queen and king and maybe Eliot’s a knight and Sophie’s a bishop, or maybe she’s the knight and he’s a rook. But even when Nate gets his hands dirty and gets into the game he’s still the grandmaster.

Parker changed the most. Maybe they didn’t want to say that because it made it sound like she had the furthest to go. Eliot would say that was a lie, that he had the most about him that needed changing, but he moved slower than she did. Hardison is sure of it, and it might be part of what keeps him from bringing it up.

Parker is happier now. She was always happy when she could find a thrill or a score, but lately it was at the point where she could be described as a happy person, overall. It’s almost weird for them, a group with a lot of reasons to feel broken. She wants to save people, and she cares, even about strangers. She thought she was alone but she wasn’t. People thought she was crazy but she wasn’t. 

They change together, but Parker started out amazing and became differently amazing. And she became incredibly trusting, not just in reckless ways where she jumps and Eliot catches her or stops his car before it kills her, but with her feelings. 

Sometimes Hardison looks at her for too long and gets emotional, which is mostly fine when the two of them are alone, and fairly embarrassing when someone else is around. Even Eliot, maybe especially Eliot, because he knows them too well, because he believes the same things about Parker that Hardison does and knows, knows everything about them that matters.

Hardison knows how hard this job is for Parker. Eliot never would have worked for the guy if, at the time, he’d been trafficking children like this. Or maybe he would have; Hardison can’t forget that Moreau was terrible and Eliot did some still yet undiscussed terrible things working for him, but Hardison thought kids were a general deal breaker.

Parker’s words and plans and speeches are just as good as they always are when she tells them how they’re going to take this man down, but the look in her eyes is all wrong. Hardison sneaks enough glances at Eliot to know that he’s feeling the same way. Hardison tries to come up with the perfect entrance to his speech about how they don’t have to do this or can do it without her or she doesn’t need to or something, but Eliot beats him to the punch. 

Typical.

“You don’t have to do this,” he says, simply.

“I know that,” Parker replies immediately, and her eyes go from sad to hard. “We’ve had this conversation. I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t want to. And I want to do it for you, but now I also want to do it for the kids, so don’t try to martyr yourself.”

Hardison’s eyes go wide. Did she have that speech prepared?

“Right,” Eliot says without missing a beat. “Sorry for implying otherwise.” He sounds sincere, though the words could be seen as dismissive. 

“Damn right you are,” Parker says, and goes right back to the plan.

Hardison’s a little turned on by her businesslike side, not gonna lie. Eliot looks impressed or maybe stunned, which would both be valid reactions, much better than Hardison’s weird and traitorous libido.

This plan requires all their skills almost equally, and they’ll all have to be out in the field at some point; Hardison will have to do three hacks in person and there are guards 24/7 who will be hard to avoid, so Eliot needs to be around for if (when) things go wrong.

The first guard who comes along actually does get fooled by the efforts of Hardison and Parker making out in a dark corner. He wonders if the plan would have ended up the same if it was Parker and Eliot or Eliot and Hardison. Clearly Eliot being there makes it more likely that fighting would be the answer, but lately Hardison thinks that it could be interesting to change it up.

There are kids actually in the building, and they get them out and to the police and their mark will never see daylight again but it doesn’t feel like a victory because it started off so bad that the ending feels hollow.

They go back to the brewpub and drink weird beer and eat good food, as usual, and they sit together too close for friends on the couch and watch movies that Hardison picks for maximum brainlessness, full of bad effects and cartoon violence. Parker sits in the middle and holds Hardison’s hand, playing with his fingers absentmindedly, and leans her shoulder against Eliot’s. 

“I’m glad we did that,” she says, as if she knows, like Hardison does, that Eliot needs to hear it.

“I’m glad it worked,” Eliot says, sounding a little choked. “I knew it would, but I’m glad it did.”

Hardison understands that, too.

* * *

Sometimes one of them can’t handle something, but any combination of the two of them can handle the one in that state. Parker knows logically that she could handle it if Eliot and Hardison both flipped out at the same time, at least during crunch time. Afterwards, it might be more of a problem, but if Parker put her mind to fixing them up she’d do it so well they could turn it around on her and help her feel better when she was done.

Hardison is still the smartest man they’ve ever known, and it’s only the sheer force of her and Eliot’s combined damage that makes her worry that Hardison might not be able to handle them both going off the rails at the same time.

If Parker and Hardison were both out of it at the same time, Eliot likely could and would do anything, even something he couldn’t recover from. She hopes he’s wrong about that, and knows if anyone could pull him back, it would be her and Hardison. And she thinks they’d break out of whatever they were going through to help him before it happened. She can’t imagine having a breakdown so bad that she wouldn’t.

If the three of them lost it at the same time, whoever they were up against would be completely fucked, but their cover and subtlety and cohesiveness would be, too. It’s a terrifying thought, how thoroughly they could ruin someone, working in a bizarre amalgamation of individualism and teamwork.

Usually it’s only one of them, and the two others are always enough.

This time, it’s Eliot. It’s been a long time coming. 

Eliot has to be the bait in their final job, like he was with Moreau. It’s not nearly as bad; nothing could be. This time he brings Parker as his arm candy with surprise skills, and even though they’ve been doing things like this for years, he and Hardison get unexpectedly extra protective of her and it puts everyone on edge. Parker is mad, too, because it feels like a lack of trust.

They all relate by arguing, sometimes. Eliot tells Hardison he hates him often; it’s easy to say that because they know it’s the exact opposite: fucking with each other, forcing each other into weird situations, circumstances they’re afraid of. Sometimes they’re actually trying to take each other out of their comfort zones, and sometimes they’re really just having fun. Most of the time they can tell when they take it too far. Parker used to have trouble with that, but she really doesn’t anymore. Hardison used to have the young guy habit of taking it too far too fast, too.

This is different. They still all have each other’s best interests at heart, but they’re on edge.

Parker and Hardison are tangentially aware of what Eliot did when they were taking down Moreau. It ended up like a litmus test of telling them what he did  _ for  _ him instead, though Eliot didn’t like it when they brought both events up in relation to each other and especially in relation to their honesty with each other. 

It’s not like they talk all the time about their previous lives, anyway. They’ve ended up finding out a lot more about Parker than anyone would have expected, but Hardison was often locked up tighter than Eliot.

But of course Hardison will never fully learn when not to  _ push _ even as they get more and more used to each other, and Parker relies on him for a lot of her interpersonal touchstones on how to act, and Eliot is already on edge, though it should have been a relief to have taken down so many people from his past. Instead he’s been getting more and more anxious and raw the closer they get to the finish line.

Well, long story short, he loses a fight and Hardison and Parker drag him out of there and make him stay in the van, Parker thinking on the fly of a way to pull this off without him, which makes it at least ten times more dangerous. Hardison and Parker are both decent in a fight, but nowhere near Eliot, especially against anyone well trained.

Predictably, they both end up with more cuts and bruises than they usually do. But they pull it off without him, and that’s the worst part, the final straw.

Parker can tell. She could tell the whole time it was happening, and she could tell now, but she decided that it was worth it to get the job completed successfully. But now is the time to deal with that fallout. She’s getting ready to do that, back at her and Hardison’s apartment (and isn’t it meaningful that they’ve started ending up together after every job) but Eliot speaks up first.

“You guys didn’t even need me on that one.”

Hardison snorts. “Tell that to my eye,” he says, holding a bag of frozen peas to it, though Parker and Eliot have both seen the bruised skin underneath.

“That’s not helping,” Parker hisses.

“It is, a little,” Eliot says, though Parker thinks he’s just being contrary. Hardison seems to like that it makes it seem like Eliot is on his side, though. “I know I’m kind of the third wheel, and I’m not getting any younger or faster, but you guys are getting better every day.”

“You’re still amazing,” Parker says. “But punching isn’t the only reason you’re here. We need your brain, too. And your heart.” 

“And your courage,” Hardison jokes. “For real, though, we can’t do this without all three of us. We’ve known it from the start. There are people out there with our skills, but nobody else knows what it’s all about like we do.”

“It doesn’t work without all of us,” Parker confirms.

“All right, I get it already,” Eliot says, rolling his eyes and trying to look mad even as he can’t quite sit up on the couch on his own without causing himself pain.

“Get what?” Hardison teases. “That we need you?”

“That we love you?” Parker adds.

It gets weird, but not in the way anyone expects. Hardison and Eliot keep stealing glances at each other, feeling each other out, waiting for someone’s masculinity to cause them to bristle against this, and nobody’s does.

“Right,” Hardison says, when it gets too quiet.

“OK,” Eliot agrees.

Parker grins like she’s won something.

* * *

They know Eliot so well, and it doesn’t scare him at all.

He’ll tell them anything if they ask. Sometimes if they don’t ask and he tells them because he knows they wouldn’t get mad if he didn’t, they’d understand, like Hardison asking about his dad. He meant it when he told Parker he’d tell them what he did for Moreau. And lately he thought that maybe if he told them, they’d still look at him the same.

They know him better than anyone, both in terms of knowing actual facts about his past and knowing who he is, at his core. That’s a little bit harder to prove to himself, but he believes it all the same. 

It’s why he believes them the next day as he’s along the path to healing up nicely when they suggest that he can join them in their bed if he wants to. It’s like all of his what if questions slam into place in his mind, fully answered.

They do feel the same about him, they were just waiting for him to be more obvious, and they will be totally fine if he says no.

“Just to be clear, you mean for a one time thing, or…” of course Eliot leads with what he doesn’t want, or at least what isn’t his preference, to save face.

“Or,” Hardison says. “That’s what we want, but if it isn’t what you want, we’re open to negotiating.”

Parker nods beside him. It’s a little hard for Eliot to concentrate when they’re having this discussion in the bedroom, but he manages. It’s probably his fault, his burden to bear, for letting them convince him to lie down in there, anyway. He just wants to, and is still having a little trouble resisting things he wants while his energy is being used on other things.

“You have to say it first,” he says. It’s a weakness to have to ask to have the power in a relationship, but it’s a necessary one at this stage. He can’t be the one to suggest something and have it turned down. “I’ll answer honestly.”

“We know you will,” Parker says. If he hasn’t already been planning on answering honestly, of course now he has to. But he really was planning on it.

“I get what you’re trying to do here,” Hardison says. “But we really are cool with a lot of options. Parker and I are going to be good. We want you to date both of us, all the way.”

Parker continues, “If you only like one of us, we could make it work, because you’re the only person we won’t be jealous of.”

“No,” Eliot interrupts, since he’s already heard exactly what he wanted. “I want what Hardison said.”

Hardison smiles, and does a really lame fist pump in victory. Eliot is about to call him on it when Hardison cuts off his attempt to speak with a kiss, and Eliot immediately responds like he’s dying for it. A small part of his brain is aware enough to note that it’s weird that he’s kissing Hardison first, in terms of the order in which he realized his attraction. But the way this feels isn’t indicating that his body has any problems with that, and his mind doesn’t either.

Parker looks at him when he pulls away, already breathing hard, and gives him a look that asks,  _ me too _ ?

Of course the answer to that can only be yes, so he leans up as she meets him halfway. She kisses so much differently than Hardison, managing to somehow make a kiss sneaky. Eliot has kissed a lot of people and never been this constantly surprised, but it feels nice; she’s good at it, just unusual. He probably should have expected that, to be honest.

Parker and Hardison don’t kiss each other immediately, like they think they need to focus their attention on Eliot. In theory he appreciates it but suddenly, even though he’s seen them kiss before, he’s dying to see it up close, and he nudges them together over him as he lies on his back on the bed between them. They get with the program quickly, and it’s obvious that the visible dirtiness of the kiss is just for him and he groans, though they’re barely even touching him.

They pull apart and simultaneously look to him to make sure it was a good noise, then smirk at him before they continue.

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like this is the quintessential first fic in a fandom, but I still like it. I tried to write all my feelings into it. I have complicated feelings about Portland… The titles to the jobs in my document while in progress are: Intro, The Touchy Feely Job, The Eliot is Old and Rich Job, The Parker is Amazing Job, The Hardison is the Smartest Job, The Eliot is Broken Job, and The Romance Job. Obviously the plot is skeletal at best, but I needed just enough frame for the romance to fit into.


End file.
